Trump’s America

[tx 3 putt 76314]

Just now, DixonHur said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/s/3ldKClFEgR

TIL: The surname Hitler is derived from German word Hüttler, which means "one who lives in a hut" (Hütte) (“hut”). So this means, in a way, 'Hitler' and 'Hut' are cognates.

Coincidence?

[gmr548 16491]

6 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

In part because of this I think disunion within the next four years is becoming more likely than not.

But I say "in part because of this."  The real impetus toward disunion is that the Trump Administration is going to be so filled with idiots and incompetents that it will be unable to forestall it.  In a million little legalistic ways, California and Washington and New York and Massachusetts are going to take steps to forestall the Trump Administration's grand plans.  And little by little, they're going to be successful.  

It's not that there's going to be some grand declaration of secession.  It's just that in 2027, the federal writ won't run in California or Massachusetts.

Yep. And the Democrat that gets elected in 2028 is going to inherit an ungovernable situation and motivated red state resistance. This country is officially an actively failing state.

[Born to Run 6565]

2 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

Yep. And the Democrat that gets elected in 2028 is going to inherit an ungovernable situation and motivated red state resistance. This country is officially an actively failing state.

This shit hilarious! Decorum; norms; elections. Hysterical 

[DixonHur 11171]

7 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

Yep. And the Democrat that gets elected in 2028 is going to inherit an ungovernable situation and motivated red state resistance. This country is officially an actively failing state.

That's cute... replace the word "playoffs" with "elections"

[gmr548 16491]

8 minutes ago, Born to Run said:

This shit hilarious! Decorum; norms; elections. Hysterical 

 

3 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

That's cute... replace the word "playoffs" with "elections"

Democrats control the election infrastructure in most swing states and at least have enough power to stop any un-lower case "d" democratic legislation in all of them but Georgia. Democrats are going to have strong midterms in 2026.

Elections are going to happen. The country may or may not be irreparably broken by 2028 but there will be an election.

[MissingInAction 24811]

1 hour ago, F250 said:

Uh, these are from six years ago on the internet archive.

 

Well, shit.

[Fastbreak 3957]

15 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

Democrats control the election infrastructure in most swing states and at least have enough power to stop any un-lower case "d" democratic legislation in all of them but Georgia. Democrats are going to have strong midterms in 2026.

Elections are going to happen. The country may or may not be irreparably broken by 2028 but there will be an election.

[tx 3 putt 76314]

 

[tx 3 putt 76314]

 

[Da Fino 2735]

30 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

This autist dildo is about to buy a government. 

[InkaUtexas 25497]

7 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

So can a member of the government do that? Seems a bit odd.

What about international influence? Yeah, none of that with Musk right.

[The Original Greaser Bob 2786]

4 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

So can a member of the government do that? Seems a bit odd.

A member of government can execute a rival and this is what seems odd?

[C-Man 27041]

Trump Makes Chilling Joke About Staying in Power Forever

https://newrepublic.com/post/188363/donald-trump-joke-power-forever

[MonkeyDoughnut 10140]

7 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

In America we call this corruption "lobbying"

[Brisketexan 104559]

13 hours ago, CTC2 said:

How about a primer on how that works for the uninitiated?

Can give you the scoop on how to do it in the UK.  It's functionally all online....which is a royal pain in the ass.  We bought a flat in Scotland.  The boy was there, so he was our "boots on the ground" to visit and inspect, decide this is the one, etc.  But you have to have a UK bank account to proceed.  And there are only so many banks that will work with non-UK residents.  We went with a very large UK bank.  Lots of back-and-forth, and multiple layers of security and confirmation, which got hung up because they needed to text confirmation to my phone, but for some reason, texts to AT&T devices just wouldn't go through.  After HOURS on the phone with customer service (all long distance calls -- they don't have a WhatsApp number or anything like that), someone finally figured out that if they deleted my phone number, the confirmation would go to my email. Worked like a charm after that.

Then, there are limits as to how much money you can move in and out per day (something like £25k).  So, had to pay for things in traunches.

And buying property over there is a very different process.  Have to have a solicitor, PLUS we needed a realtor because we were not versed in all the processes.  Had to spend some money on her, but she was worth it.  Local council taxes have to be navigated, all kinds of other stuff, and then there are the hassles of owning property remotely (that's an issue anywhere -- if you own a home in another city or state, it's an issue).

But eventually, we intend to have a working batch of cash and a piece of real property in another country.  And part of the reasoning is yeah, "just in case."

[Vegas64 663]

16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Can give you the scoop on how to do it in the UK.  It's functionally all online....which is a royal pain in the ass.  We bought a flat in Scotland.  The boy was there, so he was our "boots on the ground" to visit and inspect, decide this is the one, etc.  But you have to have a UK bank account to proceed.  And there are only so many banks that will work with non-UK residents.  We went with a very large UK bank.  Lots of back-and-forth, and multiple layers of security and confirmation, which got hung up because they needed to text confirmation to my phone, but for some reason, texts to AT&T devices just wouldn't go through.  After HOURS on the phone with customer service (all long distance calls -- they don't have a WhatsApp number or anything like that), someone finally figured out that if they deleted my phone number, the confirmation would go to my email. Worked like a charm after that.

Then, there are limits as to how much money you can move in and out per day (something like £25k).  So, had to pay for things in traunches.

And buying property over there is a very different process.  Have to have a solicitor, PLUS we needed a realtor because we were not versed in all the processes.  Had to spend some money on her, but she was worth it.  Local council taxes have to be navigated, all kinds of other stuff, and then there are the hassles of owning property remotely (that's an issue anywhere -- if you own a home in another city or state, it's an issue).

But eventually, we intend to have a working batch of cash and a piece of real property in another country.  And part of the reasoning is yeah, "just in case."

Interesting. But ultimately does it mean anything if you don’t have citizenship? Or is there a path for citizenship once you own real estate? If things completely fall apart and you decide you want to live in England, could you full time without citizenship?

[sidis 9732]

3 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

Interesting. But ultimately does it mean anything if you don’t have citizenship? Or is there a path for citizenship once you own real estate? If things completely fall apart and you decide you want to live in England, could you full time without citizenship?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/indefinite-leave-to-remain-in-the-uk

[Brisketexan 104559]

5 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

Interesting. But ultimately does it mean anything if you don’t have citizenship? Or is there a path for citizenship once you own real estate? If things completely fall apart and you decide you want to live in England, could you full time without citizenship?

Getting full immigration/resident status somewhere else is a whole different topic.  It ultimately depends on what happens here and abroad.  There may be some refugee/asylum status (and yes, American citizens being eligible for political asylum elsewhere is a real thing that can actually happen), there can be family member residency, and there's also the "bounce around" approach -- you can do 90 days in the UK, leave for 90 days, then come back for 90 days, etc. etc.  Same with the EU.  So, three months in Scotland, three months somewhere else, then back to Scotland, etc.

[pyrohornIII 4809]

I have a friend who is a 20 something Latina from East Texas and we talked a bit before the election a few times.   She was intending to vote for Kamala, and in August was pretty excited about it.  But the closer the election got the more tired she and her friends and family got of it.  They just wanted it over.   

She texted me yesterday and now all the sudden they are all worried about being deported.  She was born here, but her parents and most aunts and uncles immigrated in, and she was kinda vague on if they were all legit.   What worries them is not being pulled off of some list, but one of them getting sideways with any local law enforcement officer, or school official, or all the red pill fucks monitoring the schools and hospitals.  Employers are going to take even more advantage of them, make them work longer hours for less pay.  If they give anyone trouble, then at any moment any one of them, or the whole damned family can be packed on the county bus and shipped to Mexico.  I would imagine there will be those making money as immigrant bounty hunters.  

I know mass deportation is fairly unworkable without using the military, but for just keeping the general population in line, it has to be a nightmare.  

I'd never thought about it that way, but now I do.    Have y'all seen anything on any groups beginning to build up resistance to fight this, like ACLU or LULAC?  

[abuelo gringo 319]

15 hours ago, Beantown Express 2.0 said:

I put all my money into Dogecoin.  That’s overseas, right?

Yeah, in Venice.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33834]

3 minutes ago, abuelo gringo said:

Yeah, in Venice.

[ABZ 58]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Can give you the scoop on how to do it in the UK.  It's functionally all online....which is a royal pain in the ass.  We bought a flat in Scotland.  The boy was there, so he was our "boots on the ground" to visit and inspect, decide this is the one, etc.  But you have to have a UK bank account to proceed.  And there are only so many banks that will work with non-UK residents.  We went with a very large UK bank.  Lots of back-and-forth, and multiple layers of security and confirmation, which got hung up because they needed to text confirmation to my phone, but for some reason, texts to AT&T devices just wouldn't go through.  After HOURS on the phone with customer service (all long distance calls -- they don't have a WhatsApp number or anything like that), someone finally figured out that if they deleted my phone number, the confirmation would go to my email. Worked like a charm after that.

Then, there are limits as to how much money you can move in and out per day (something like £25k).  So, had to pay for things in traunches.

And buying property over there is a very different process.  Have to have a solicitor, PLUS we needed a realtor because we were not versed in all the processes.  Had to spend some money on her, but she was worth it.  Local council taxes have to be navigated, all kinds of other stuff, and then there are the hassles of owning property remotely (that's an issue anywhere -- if you own a home in another city or state, it's an issue).

But eventually, we intend to have a working batch of cash and a piece of real property in another country.  And part of the reasoning is yeah, "just in case."

I have a UK bank account as well, because I lived/worked in Scotland. It was a pain in the ass to get it even though I was living there. I had to prove I was staying there for an extended period of time and provide documentation on income levels and a letter from my company. I needed a bank account immediately after moving there and it still took about a month. I also went through this same process in France, although I canceled that bank account, which in hindsight was a mistake.

Also FYI, you have to report any foreign accounts valued over $10k when you file taxes.

From a tariff perspective, with its impact on inflation, I thought about transferring dollars into pounds if warranted, but I think tariff based inflation will affect the global economy, so not really the hedge I want it to be.

[Brisketexan 104559]

Just now, ABZ said:

I have a UK bank account as well, because I lived/worked in Scotland. It was a pain in the ass to get it even though I was living there. I had to prove I was staying there for an extended period of time and provide documentation on income levels and a letter from my company. I needed a bank account immediately after moving there and it still took about a month. I also went through this same process in France, although I canceled that bank account, which in hindsight was a mistake.

Also FYI, you have to report any foreign accounts valued over $10k when you file taxes.

From a tariff perspective, with its impact on inflation, I thought about transferring dollars into pounds if warranted, but I think tariff based inflation will affect the global economy, so not really the hedge I want it to be.

Yep.  The boy had a similar pain in the ass when he moved to the UK, as did the daughter.  Was MUCH easier to open an account when she moved to Canada (walked over to the RBC branch, opened a student account with her, done deal).  Germany was a similar pain in the ass when the boy lived there.  One thing we encouraged them to do was to KEEP all those accounts active, forever.  Daughter keeps a low balance in her RBC account.  Boy kept his German account, and now he's back over there for a year, so it's active again (although he doesn't ever have that much money in it, so not reportable).

We had to report our UK account starting last year.  We also have a separate account for German expenses that we need to report next year (they require a "blocked bank account" with sufficient funds to support the student for the year).  But our family rule is "keep every bank account in every country active."  It's just a nice hedge to have a quick and easy way to move money in or out of any country as pressing needs may arise.

Yeah, if we have tariff-based inflation, then it will ripple globally for sure.

[Ojo Rojo 1890]

Government doesn't actually function without the bureaucrats. It's possible that the heads of all of these departments, who are Trump loyalists and true-believers, will try to do dumb and evil shit, but the bureaucrats who have to actually carry it out with just say, "Nah, fuck you."  Or they can just stall and gum up the works while pretending to follow orders. Sure they can be fired and replaced - with a loyalist who doesn't know how to do the job.  That will take time for training and if there aren't anymore people around who know how to do the jobs then nothing actually gets done.  So if the head of the EPA tells someone, "Go burn down that forest!" and enough people say no and then no one knows where the matches and gasoline are, the forest doesn't get burned.

This is me trying to not be fatalistic.

[Chad Fuck 17557]

11 hours ago, F250 said:

Uh, these are from six years ago on the internet archive.

 

Man, I was so spot on.

Do I get some sort of innerwebz award?

[C-Man 27041]

[Chad Fuck 17557]

9 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

 

Go Citizens United!  

[Goofyboy 3197]

I was also reading that The US can freeze accounts over seas, so really - we are trapped here or at least trapped under the control of the US. Granted it might be hard for the US to mess with overseas accounts, but it is POSSIBLE.

[G650 14086]

1 minute ago, Goofyboy said:

I was also reading that The US can freeze accounts over seas, so really - we are trapped here or at least trapped under the control of the US. Granted it might be hard for the US to mess with overseas accounts, but it is POSSIBLE.

It an onerous process for them to do that, they have to show criminal connection to the money.

[F250 28680]

3 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

Man, I was so spot on.

Do I get some sort of innerwebz award?

No, just a trip to a re-education camp.

[Brisketexan 104559]

3 minutes ago, G650 said:

It an onerous process for them to do that, they have to show criminal connection to the money.

Correct.  Methinks that the UK, Germany, Canada, etc., aren't going to just freeze the accounts of people charged with "disloyalty to the regime."*

* And yes, under the Gaetz DOJ, some version of that "charge" will very likely become a thing.  Just remember, all of these "FREE SPEECH!" advocates are going to be 200% on-board with the Trump regime using the force of government and law enforcement to go after people for.....their protected free speech/political activity.  Because it has never, ever, ever been about "FREE SPEECH" as a concept.  It's been about license to lie with no checks or repercussions for one side in the power struggle, full stop.

[Chad Fuck 17557]

7 minutes ago, F250 said:

No, just a trip to a re-education camp.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33834]

10 minutes ago, G650 said:

It an onerous process for them to do that, they have to show criminal connection to the money.

well, when they make being a lib a crime then they'll have all the cover they need

[G650 14086]

Just now, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

well, when they make being a lib a crime then they'll have all the cover they need

Except the other country has to agree.

FWIW, I guess it's depends on your definition of difficult, but it's fairly straightforward to have a bank account overseas. Just time consuming.

[Gap03 3277]

22 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

Government doesn't actually function without the bureaucrats. It's possible that the heads of all of these departments, who are Trump loyalists and true-believers, will try to do dumb and evil shit, but the bureaucrats who have to actually carry it out with just say, "Nah, fuck you."  Or they can just stall and gum up the works while pretending to follow orders. Sure they can be fired and replaced - with a loyalist who doesn't know how to do the job.  That will take time for training and if there aren't anymore people around who know how to do the jobs then nothing actually gets done.  So if the head of the EPA tells someone, "Go burn down that forest!" and enough people say no and then no one knows where the matches and gasoline are, the forest doesn't get burned.

This is me trying to not be fatalistic.

Got some bad news for you - we have plenty of companies that are more than happy to burn down that forest for free as soon as they know nobody is going to punish them for doing so.

[Ojo Rojo 1890]

5 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

Got some bad news for you - we have plenty of companies that are more than happy to burn down that forest for free as soon as they know nobody is going to punish them for doing so.

I wonder what Elon and Vivek will have to say about privatizing a function we are already paying people to do.

[Gap03 3277]

15 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

I wonder what Elon and Vivek will have to say about privatizing a function we are already paying people to do.

As long as the money ends up in the right pockets, I'm sure that's a win in their book. 

[Brisketexan 104559]

24 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

I wonder what Elon and Vivek will have to say about privatizing a function we are already paying people to do.

The important thing is not that the function be performed.  It never, ever is.

The important thing is that the game be fixed to ensure that dollars flow from taxpayer pockets into the pockets of oligarchs.  If they do so through a middleman (gov't contracts, awarded to friends of the regime), cool.  If they set up a system that skips the middleman and just directly funnels those dollars to the oligarchs as a gov't requirement, even better.

Take healthcare: delivering actual "healthcare" is not just an incidental thing.  It is actually totally unnecessary.  They want a system that doesn't give a single shit whether anyone lives or dies.  What is important is "shareholder value" (except the oligarchs also want to eventually take "shareholders" out of the mix -- they hate having to answer to ANYONE, even a mass of poorly organized owners of stock).  That's it.  There's nothing else.  It's not that "profit" is the most important thing.  It's that it's the ONLY important thing, and "delivering a product or service" are actually the ENEMY of increased profits.  When/if they finally get around to their "great, beautiful healthcare, the likes of which you've never seen," that's what it's going to look like.  Shitty health outcomes, increasing concentration of wealth for the favored people at the top -- they are going to be DELIGHTED with that outcome, because it's all they want.

This is the system they want.  They are implementing it.  It is "enshittening" as the sole ethos and plan for society.  Enjoy.

Edited 29 minutes ago by Brisketexan

[tx 3 putt 76314]

2 hours ago, C-Man said:

Trump Makes Chilling Joke About Staying in Power Forever

https://newrepublic.com/post/188363/donald-trump-joke-power-forever

 

he’s not joking 

[tx 3 putt 76314]

2 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Can give you the scoop on how to do it in the UK.  It's functionally all online....which is a royal pain in the ass.  We bought a flat in Scotland.  The boy was there, so he was our "boots on the ground" to visit and inspect, decide this is the one, etc.  But you have to have a UK bank account to proceed.  And there are only so many banks that will work with non-UK residents.  We went with a very large UK bank.  Lots of back-and-forth, and multiple layers of security and confirmation, which got hung up because they needed to text confirmation to my phone, but for some reason, texts to AT&T devices just wouldn't go through.  After HOURS on the phone with customer service (all long distance calls -- they don't have a WhatsApp number or anything like that), someone finally figured out that if they deleted my phone number, the confirmation would go to my email. Worked like a charm after that.

Then, there are limits as to how much money you can move in and out per day (something like £25k).  So, had to pay for things in traunches.

And buying property over there is a very different process.  Have to have a solicitor, PLUS we needed a realtor because we were not versed in all the processes.  Had to spend some money on her, but she was worth it.  Local council taxes have to be navigated, all kinds of other stuff, and then there are the hassles of owning property remotely (that's an issue anywhere -- if you own a home in another city or state, it's an issue).

But eventually, we intend to have a working batch of cash and a piece of real property in another country.  And part of the reasoning is yeah, "just in case."

 

so generous of you to let me stay in the garage apt 

 

the brisket kids should pick up their uk real estate credentials and market their services over here 

Edited 10 minutes ago by tx 3 putt

[Dnaguy 11770]

10 hours ago, Da Fino said:

This autist dildo is about to buy a government. 

South African born immigrant no less.